‘Cocaine is making a comeback in New York,’ drug official warns

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – More than 72,000 Americans died as a result of drug overdoses in 2018, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Officials don’t want to see that number get any higher before the calendar flips to 2019.

With upcoming New Year’s Eve celebrations just days away, Ray Donovan, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) New York Division, took the opportunity to warn residents of the dangers of fentanyl — and to caution against alarming new narcotic trends such as the rise of cocaine in the Big Apple.

In the last three years, seizures of cocaine are up significantly, from 5,865 kilograms in 2015 to 11,951 in 2018, the DEA said in a press release.

In many instances, dealers are mixing it with the deadly opioid fentanyl.

“Cocaine is making a comeback in New York,” said Donovan. “Our cases indicate that dealers are selling cocaine alone as well as mixtures of cocaine with fentanyl. I want to warn New Yorkers that there is no quality control when it comes to drugs, you have no idea what local dealers are selling. Every time you use drugs, you put your lives in dealers’ hands.”

The past year, the DEA’s New York Division has seized approximately 540 million one-milligram dosage units of fentanyl — enough to kill hundreds of millions of people, officials said.

Other seizures this year include 1,000 kilograms of heroin, 12,000 kilograms of cocaine and $33 million in cash, denying traffickers revenue of $355 million.

Nationally, nearly 60 percent of all overdoses were opioid-related. Opioid-related deaths in New York State have increased 60 percent from 2015 to 2017, according to the New York State Department of Health.

The National Center for Health Statistics’ report on drug overdose deaths in the United States from 2011 – 2016 named fentanyl the deadliest drug of 2016 with cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine following not too far behind.

“Fentanyl is not just a game changer, it ends games and ends lives,” said Donovan. “Fentanyl is the most lethal drug threat on our streets today because it is cheap, it is unregulated, it is being mixed with other drugs and it is man-made.”

Staten Islanders are acutely aware of the effects of the opioid epidemic.

There were 116 fatal overdoses in the borough in 2016 and 101 in 2017.

But that number is poised to jump here in 2018.

The most recent statistics provided by the office of District Attorney Michael E. McMahon indicate there were 101 overdoses on Staten Island through Dec. 17 and another 251 naloxone saves.